


the chain

by Phinmeister



Category: Original Work
Genre: Diary/Journal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 21:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phinmeister/pseuds/Phinmeister
Summary: my ptsd got a surprise little flare-up this morning and I wrote about it.





	the chain

It was nine AM when I woke up, except it wasn't. It was nine AM when I was lofted into consciousness, or a form thereof, by the alarm on my phone ("Radar" the folks at Apple call it, but it sounds gentler than the name suggests), and approximately nine AM and ten seconds when I fell back asleep. It was 10:16 AM when I woke up again, opened my eyes, checked my phone again and grumbled internally, as I was late for the very appointment I had set my alarm for. It was just after that when I saw the notification.

It began with _Recommended Tweet for You_ and it was from HER, that girl who ruined my life and she didn't even mean to and she doesn't know about it, but she did. Talking about a small little happy event that had happened to her. With him. 

The first spark that ignited in my mind was “Really, Twitter? Recommended for me?” and then I was pounded by a metric ton of bricks in my brain. 

_**Really really Twitter I didn’t HAVE to see that I don’t wanna see her I don’t want to see her at all ever I don’t want to SEE HER EVER** _

Inside my brain was freezing over, not so much a winter wonderland but a desolate toxin-filled wasteland in the making. Circuits were shorting, and the highway on which thoughts travel in my brain collapsed into rubble. 

The outside world faded in and out as the back of my eyes was hit with a sudden pressure. Focus, focus, what was focus? Physical focus, mental focus. None of it was present and accounted for in the new world of my mind, captured by otherworldly forces, the physical forms of fear. 

Blinking rapidly, or perhaps not at all, I tried to stop myself from staring at the tweet but was forced to anyway, like in that infamous scene in A Clockwork Orange. Her Twitter icon was as perfect as she was in her entirety, a backwards view of her immaculately styled ponytail in a messy bun, hair flowing into an imaginary breeze, falling onto a crisp white shirt. A filter pasted onto the picture, darkish blue, just accentuated the beauty of it all. Wasn’t beautiful to me, but she was one of those that just existed to be the ideal form of a goddess on the slowly-turning planet Earth. She was living the perfect life, wasn’t she. Watching some fucking movie with fucking HIM. Maybe every day they had good times like that. Probably. Most likely. Sun shining through every orifice, she probably made him laugh. I remember how he laughed. Eyes crinkled up. In fact, I knew she did, because he had said once she was the _only one_ , I saw that years ago and it stuck in my brain like a stain that would never come off. I had many of those, ruining an otherwise clean surface, unmistakable even if I tried to hide them - from whom? Myself. 

All that tweet reminded me of was that she was having fun, living her best life. Meanwhile I was a freak with unwashed dyed black hair and gross skin lying only in my underwear in my bed in a prison cell they called a dorm room. A fan with marks on it from a hot chocolate I had drank and accidentally spilled on it two or three months ago blasted cold air on my neck, even though it was the middle of winter. I drew my blanket over myself so I was invisible to any other eye, and shook. 

Breathing never helped. Calming my physical self never did anything when it was my mental self in a crisis. In and out of reality I went, my hands trembling as they always did when this happened, my eyes dry even though they were still blinking for some goddamn reason. 

Stuck. I never had any coping mechanisms for when this happened. Breathing, they always said. Distracting yourself. Getting up and exercising. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. 

Oh of course they were so happy, I couldn’t even say the two words, the state of being they were probably in. _I n  l o v e_ it fucking stung like nothing else of course they were happy of course I _never could be._ I noticed my palms were sweaty, too, and still shaking. I was curled up into the fetal position, facing the wall, the white wall with a weird textural pattern on it from probably about 40 years ago when they constructed these buildings. I couldn’t see. 

This had not happened for about a month now, maybe more. I had convinced myself I was getting over it. I dreamt about him a lot, but every time I was okay with where he was. At peace for once, and I rejoiced in my dreams that I didn’t face the idea of him moving on in life with searing pain. But then I woke up and that went out the FUCKING WINDOW. 

With glee I imagined my whole skull just smashing into a million pieces just going kablowey  _kabloom_ like in Calvin and Hobbes comics and my brain just splattering all over the place. Oh wouldn’t that be nice, because I wouldn’t have to _think_ then. I wouldn’t even be able to think. I wouldn’t have a mind. It felt like paradise. Just brain matter and blood dripping onto a blank surface, the idea of what I was once was gone into oblivion. 

I couldn’t think of him, it was wrong to think about him and I knew I shouldn’t, but I had to think about him. How he was when I thought I knew him. How he is now when I don’t know him at all, not in the slightest. I used to know but now I’m nothing in the current of time. He’s gone and that’s the reality and she’s living the life you always wanted but could _never ever EVER have._

I looked him up, stuff about him and people talking about him with loving tones, even though I told myself don’t do that don’t just leave it alone come on get up and go on with your day don’t do this. Someone said _we’re all so happy for them_ and someone else mentioned that they’d been together since 2013. 2013, when I was fully in the midst of what he was doing and thought I knew everything and thought I was happy and thought everything was okay. It was so far back now. Over half a decade and I didn’t know. Not that he had to tell me. That was laughable. Who am I to know these things? Wasn’t my business, and yet something inside me had grabbed onto it and him and said LOL this is your life now. 

Somehow I got out of bed, and I wasn’t even thinking about doing that, how it had happened and what I was doing. Still caught in the fog of whatever the fuck time does and dreaming of other realities where I’m happier. I might have drunk some water. I put on my bathrobe because I couldn’t get dressed, not quite yet. 

Everything was offset by a margin. Reality wasn’t set in place correctly. I was used to that at this point, but it was hard to do literally anything when I couldn’t place in my brain that I was taking steps. 

I walked into the bathroom and was blasted with some familiar song, oh wait it’s the guitar solo from Hotel California. _Hotel California?_ I thought to myself, as if that were on the list of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not 2019 Edition. Every time I come in there someone’s playing a different genre of music to shower to and I guess I never expected classic rock. 

Dodadodadodadodadodadodadodado dodadodadodododo DRRRRRRR

Despite myself, I felt a little pumped up. Off, certainly, and out of my mind, but somewhere in the far back corner of my brain like I could take on the day. Ha ha ha. No I couldn’t. 

As with everything, though, it felt off. The guitar solo didn’t fit what had long since been established in my mind. There were extra riffs, and where had they come from? Why were they there? Was my memory so fucked up that I had it wrong the whole time and it had actually been like this for 42 years? But then applause came and I realized _oh it’s a live version_  and I wanted to be friends with that person in the shower because I didn’t know anyone else who listened to music like that rather than what’s popular now. 

When I left the person bathing themselves, or rather their technological device, started playing _The Chain_ by Fleetwood Mac, and I was immediately like _oh_ because I know that song and I like that song, I really like it, and that’s another tune that makes me feel like _hm maybe I can conquer the world just in my own little way._ Back in my room and I could just barely hear it through the window and the paper-thin walls. 

_Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise_

_Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies_

Without thinking much about anything at all I put on yesterday’s clothes and this week’s jacket of choice. Fuzzy socks and shoes that I could slip on in two seconds. I couldn’t really hear the music anymore, or maybe I just wasn’t listening. My brain was in a room of its own, trapped in solitary confinement in the middle of a wormhole. 

Grabbed my phone and headphones. Checked again as I always did to make sure I had my room key. Opened YouTube as I walked out of my room, searched “the cha” and there it was popped up in the search results.

_And if you don't love me now_

_You will never love me again_

_I can still hear you saying_

_You would never break the chain_

Each beat hit me like I was on a train listening to the rhythm of its movement as it pushed forward. and if YOU don’t LOVE me NOW you will NEVer LOVE me AGAIN

I didn’t know if that applied to me or metaphorically to him. Of course it didn’t apply to him, but perhaps to what he represented in the dynamic I had forced upon myself. I think it applied to me. I didn’t love him anymore, I didn’t like him, I couldn’t even think about him without everything inside me screaming and crying and falling into the depths of hell itself. I don’t know if I would be able to let him cross my mind in a nonchalant way for the rest of my life. Would it always hurt like this?

_Never break the chain_

Stuck in an endless pattern a thought loop more like a trauma loop _circles and circles of pain_ **endless** would it ever stop? Would I ever be free?

I barely felt like I was walking autonomously, more as if I were being pushed forward each step by some strong force. I didn’t think as I walked up the stairs. The cool air hit me but I didn’t notice that, either. 

_And if you don’t love me now (you don’t love me now) you will never love me again I can STILL HEAR YOU SAYIN’ you will never break the chain (never break the chain)_

The ground was still wet from the days and nights of rain pummeling down, but not now, now it was clear and dry. I stood by the crowd by the end of the road and didn’t look at anything in particular but just listened to the music and felt my heart beat _fastfastfast_

dun...da da DUN dundadundadun dun. The guitar intermingled with drum beats powpowPOWpowpowpowPOWpow and electric guitar wailing and it felt like my mind exploding but also felt like it was, somehow, going back on the right track.

Maybe it would fade eventually. Maybe it would fade today until it came back later, striking my heart unexpectedly. Maybe I would **SHAKE** and tremble and go backandforthall O V E R the place but the day would pass and end and then another, and maybe that didn’t have to be a bad thing. 

Who knows. 


End file.
